ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605170019
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MARGIE FISHER
SOURCE: MARGIE FISHER
A MONTH ago, I was thinking I needed more college education. Now, it seems clear I could benefit from more middle-school education.
A visit to Benjamin Franklin Middle Schools in Rocky Mount convinced me.
In a large classroom filled with computer-equipped work stations, I found students involved in such projects as:
nUsing a computer to program and operate a robotic arm. Viewing the image on a computer screen, students used joysticks to manipulate the robot arm to perform various tasks.
nConducting research and experiments in biotechnology.
nLearning to use video and audio equipment that would do a modern TV or radio network proud. Kids were creating and producing their own programs.
nDesigning and building a model rocket. Then launching the rocket (on the school's campus) and measuring its altitude to demonstrate knowledge of aerodynamics.
These were sixth-graders, for heaven's sake - not rocket scientists! When my children were that age, I don't recall that they could operate a pop-up toaster, much less knew about electrical conductors, insulators, voltage meters, etc. When I was that age, I might have been taken on a class field-trip to watch the planes take off at Roanoke's airport, but I certainly wasn't studying aircraft design or operating a missile-interception computer program.
The classroom-computer lab I visited was, not long ago, an industrial-arts workshop where kids built birdhouses. It's still an industrial-arts workshop actually; but instead of hammers and nails, the learning tools are applied physics, pneumatics, engineering concepts and the many wonders of new technology.
This kind of learning is going on in most school systems, I hear. But Franklin County, once considered a rural backwater community, seems to have moved faster to embrace it than many in Virginia. Classrooms and libraries are wired, networked, CD-ROMed - putting Franklin's students in league with those in, say, Fairfax County.
The investment in technology-assisted instruction - along with several innovative programs initiated by school Superintendent Leonard Gereau - appears to be paying off. Franklin's schoolchildren rank in the state's top third for student achievement, though the county is in the bottom 20 percent of Virginia school divisions on per-pupil expenditures.
And next year, the county will take another big, innovative leap. The public-school system will open a Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration - not a magnet school, more like a corporate-training center - where all eighth- and ninth-graders will do hands-on work in modules that integrate technology and academics in new ways.
The students will take on problem-solving assignments in the fields of manufacturing, engineering, banking and finance, health, human services, media design, arts, law and the environment. They will be taught by teams that include schoolteachers and also highly skilled representatives from industries engaged in these fields.
The center's goal is not only to give students the opportunity to sample career choices, but also to give them specialized skills that rapidly changing industries need from today's, and tomorrow's, workforce. The availability of such skills could significantly boost Franklin County's ability to attract new high-tech industries and jobs.
Superintendent Gereau deserves credit for promoting the center concept - which is unique in Virginia and, perhaps, in the nation. He's worked tirelessly, for example, to interest national foundations in the initiative. Franklin's residents, who approved a bond issue in 1994 to provide construction funds for the facility, are also to be commended for recognizing the plus it could be for the county. Ditto Franklin County businesses for giving their support, in helping to develop the curriculum, etc.
Here, it should be noted that Franklin's businesses have been major players in advancing others of Gereau's ideas. One is a dropout-prevention program - now being copied by other school divisions - wherein businesses agree to give priority consideration to the county's high-school graduates seeking entry-level jobs. The school system, in return, essentially guarantees that the kids who're hired will have the skills the businesses need.
In another program, the schools notify the employer if an employee's son or daughter has won an academic honor. The employer gives special recognition to the employee-parent. The effect of such a simple, virtually no-cost program has been to motivate co-workers to push their own children toward greater academic achievement, and to increase parents' interest in the schools. Often, Gereau says, PTA meetings are so well-attended that it's difficult to find a parking place outside.
Concerning the training center now under construction, Gereau isn't gilding the lily to describe it as a ``total community effort.'' Neither is Wayne Angell, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, when he calls it ``the first bold move in the region toward true educational reform.''
Gereau acknowledges that the project is ``a risk-taking venture'' in a county better-known as the moonshine capital of the world than for path-setting in public education. Better-known now, that is. I'd be willing to bet this venture will get national attention.
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